Monday, August 24, 1998 Last modified at 12:35 a.m. on Monday, August 24, 1998

Angolan forces capture Congolese rebel town

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - President Laurent Kabila's quest for regional military support paid off Sunday when his Angolan allies captured a key rebel stronghold in western Congo.

The rebels acknowledged losing the town of Kitona, but said they were continuing their advance on Kinshasa, the capital, and also had captured the important eastern city of Kisangani.

The Angolan victory was a much-needed boost for Kabila, but it also threatened to transform Congo into a proxy battlefield for a regionwide war of shifting alliances.

With air support and rumbling tanks, Angolan forces drove into Kitona, near the Atlantic coast, effectively cutting off the advancing rebel army from its rear guard.

"The Angolans are at the base and have captured a large cache of weapons and ammunition," a ministry-level official said on condition of anonymity. He said that Angola also had landed a number of warplanes at Kinshasa's international airport.

The report said Kabila's troops, aided by Angolan soldiers, had captured the towns of Muanda and Banana, near Kitona, and then seized Boma, about 60 miles to the east. It also said soldiers had captured Matadi, Congo's only oceangoing port on the Congo River.

The report could not be independently confirmed.

If true, however, it would mean that most of the major rebel victories in the area southwest of Kinshasa had been reversed.

Government officials declined to make detailed comment, but Health Minister Jean-Baptiste Sondgi said that: "There's fighting in the area, I can't give exact details."

Rebel leaders on the other side of the country in the eastern city of Goma acknowledged the loss of Kitona, but vowed to press on to Kinshasa.

In the space of several days, the landscape of Congo's second civil war in two years has shifted dramatically and was fast expanding into a regional conflict.

Rwanda and Uganda - in support of the rebels - repeatedly have warned Zimbabwe and Angola not to get involved.

Both countries say they will respond with direct retaliatory intervention if the Angolans and Zimbabweans don't withdraw.

Rwanda and Uganda both backed Kabila in his successful bid last year to oust longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. This time around they are believed to be arming and supporting the rebels that seek to oust Kabila.

Zimbabwe, whose soldiers arrived before Angolan forces and were helping shore up Kinshasa's southern defenses, has a financial stake in Kabila's government, having extended more than $200 million in military credits to Congo.

Angola's involvement may be partially driven by a concern that Congo's rebels could link up with Angola's UNITA insurgent movement.

Kabila, meanwhile, remained away from the capital, holed up at his residence in the southern city of Lubumbashi, Information Minister Mumengi said.

Bizima Karaha, Kabila's former foreign minister who fled to the rebel side, acknowledged the fall of Kitona - the first major setback in a stunning three-week rebel advance on Kinshasa.

"We've made a tactical withdrawal," said Karaha, a member of the rebel political wing, the Congolese Democratic Coalition. "Kitona is Congo, it will remain Congo. Angola cannot colonize Congo."

Karaha's comments mirrored similar statements by Kabila in recent weeks. He has accused Rwandan Tutsis of using the rebel movement - a coalition of ethnic Tutsi fighters, Rwandan soldiers and disaffected members of Kabila's army - to create a regional Tutsi empire.

Kitona was used by the rebels to shuttle in reinforcements airlifted across the country from their main bases in eastern Congo.

But Karaha said the news was not all bad for the rebels. He claimed rebel fighters had captured Kisangani, Congo's third-largest city. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

The insurgents, who accuse Kabila of power-grabbing, tribalism and mismanagement, have pushed to within 18 miles of Kinshasa.

Angola's entry into Congo's civil war came as South Africa tried to salvage a crumbling regional peace summit in Pretoria. Two key leaders snubbed the talks: Kabila and his ally, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu attended; Kabila was represented by his justice minister, Mwenze Kongolo.

Rivals in the Congolese crisis sat in separate rooms as South African officials shuttled between them in an effort to broker peace, South African radio reported.

President Nelson Mandela announced later that 12 member nations of the Southern African Development Community on Sunday called for a cease-fire and recognized Kabila's right to govern Congo.